Alex123 wrote:Do you imply that some sort of consciousness/awareness remains in pariNibbana?

We aren't talking about parinibbana. You said "they've seen nibbana." I am simply asking you whether this "seeing of nibbana" as you understand it, is distinguishable from the state of unconsciousness?

They have understood that everything that arises (including consciousness of all and any kind) will cease. There is no eternal and uncaused consciousness that will live happily ever after. Nibbana with remainder, - is cessation of greed, anger & delusion. This can be known.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

Alex123 wrote:Do you imply that some sort of consciousness/awareness remains in pariNibbana?

We aren't talking about parinibbana. You said "they've seen nibbana." I am simply asking you whether this "seeing of nibbana" as you understand it, is distinguishable from the state of unconsciousness?

They have understood that everything that arises (including consciousness of all and any kind) will cease. There is no eternal and uncaused consciousness that will live happily ever after. Nibbana with remainder, - is cessation of greed, anger & delusion. This can be known.

We need to be careful in how we present this issue, though, even if from one perspective our words are correct, so that people don't get the wrong idea. If people infer from our presentation that the Buddha taught annihilationism, or nihilism, then we would be misrepresenting him:

"And how is the monk a Noble One who has taken down the flag, put down the burden, become unfettered? He has abandoned the conceit of self, has cut it off at the root, removed it from is soil like a palmyra tree, brought it to utter extinction, incapable of arising again. Thus is the monk a Noble One who has taken down the flag, put down the burden, become unfettered.

"When a monk's mind is thus freed, O monks, neither the gods with Indra, nor the gods with Brahma, nor the gods with the Lord of Creatures (Pajaapati), when searching will find on what the consciousness of one thus gone (tathaagata) is based. Why is that? One who has thus gone is no longer traceable here and now, so I say.

... "So teaching, so proclaiming, O monks, I have been baselessly, vainly, falsely and wrongly accused by some ascetics and brahmans: 'A nihilist is the ascetic Gotama; He teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the non-being of an existing individual.'

"As I am not as I do not teach, so have I been baselessly, vainly, falsely and wrongly accused by some ascetics and brahmans thus: 'A nihilist is the ascetic Gotama; He teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the non-being of an existing individual.'

"What I teach now as before, O monks, is suffering and the cessation of suffering."

-from The Discourse on the Snake Simile (Alagaddupama Sutta, MN 22)

I add this just out of concern for anyone who might, as I once did, wrongly grasp the Teaching in that particular area and be put off Dhamma as a result.

The aggregates ceasing is annihilation only if we are of the wrong view that things exist. It must occure only at death, if we consider that things exist. But what if things existed/experience manifested in a somewhat different way? That is, what if one experience merely gave rise to another experience, in a cause and effect manner; and each cause (and hence effect) was impermanent (hence, unsatisfactory). So that everything that arises is dukkha.

This is what those people with discernment proclaim, according to the kaccayanagotta sutta.

manasikara wrote:We need to be careful in how we present this issue, though, even if from one perspective our words are correct, so that people don't get the wrong idea. If people infer from our presentation that the Buddha taught annihilationism, or nihilism, then we would be misrepresenting him:

"What I teach now as before, O monks, is suffering and the cessation of suffering."

-from The Discourse on the Snake Simile (Alagaddupama Sutta, MN 22)

I add this just out of concern for anyone who might, as I once did, wrongly grasp the Teaching in that particular area and be put off Dhamma as a result.

Right. The Buddha taught the cessation of ALL suffering (real or potential), wherever it is found. Final cessation of 5 aggregates is not a cessation of anything worthwhile (sukha), and it is not cessation of a "Self" (which is a mistaken idea).

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."